Silent Hill: Misty Dreams
by LSSPD
Summary: A man, alone in the world, finds himself on the doorstep of unreality: Silent Hill. Mist and Horror make something unnatural and unpleasant in this little town. Chapter SEVEN up!
1. Legality & Introduction

**Silent Hill: Misty Dreams**

A work of fiction by Lucas S. Speed

The following work of Fan Fiction is purely that: Fiction. None of the following in any way represents anyone living or dead, and any resemblance is sheer coincidence. Silent Hill and all related aspects are property of the good people at Konami, and I don't claim to own any of their nice things. The characters involved in the following story belong solely to me and no other person, as they are all misfit children of my own thought processes.

For reference, I'm using a wonderful Plot Analysis of existing Silent Hill media by GameFaqs patron SilentPyramid, as well as an online area map of Silent Hill.

This concludes the obligatory nonsense constructed in shoddy fashion to protect myself in the very off chance that someone wishes to start legal conflict.

-Introduction and Summary

Silent Hill: A dreamy, sunny resort on a beautiful lake for most people. A foggy hell for the few who are unfortunate enough to be just a bit insane.

Silent Hill. A place of restless dreams and mysterious origin. A place of judgment for the wicked, in the most evil fashion imaginable. When it calls to you, it is as inescapable as any other law of Life or Death. It is imminent and ominous, lost forever inside clouds of billowing mist. The evil of a human mind manifests itself most truly into physical existence in this place, and there amidst the foggy shroud, humanity battles insanity on a very real, physical scale.

In Silent Hill, sin takes a physical form as often as a man draws breath. Some speculate that hallucinogens are the culprit, while others claim ancient religions and cults have warped the land into something sinister. Either way, the place remains the same – shrouded and unyielding. A maze of life-threatening evil, filled with images that threaten the solidity of sanity.

Silent Hill: Materialization of Delusions. Bloody Prison. A meatgrinder for Sanity.

... A Misty Dream.


	2. Chapter One: Richard

**Silent Hill: Misty Dreams**

A work of fiction by Lucas S. Speed

--Chapter One: Richard

The alarm clock buzzed it's orchestra of grating melody into Richard's ears for several minutes, dutifully waking the man from heavy slumber as the time drew closer and closer to nine thirty, a.m. Finally, a thick hand slapped at the clock from beneath thick comforters, smashing the 'snooze' button down and silencing the cries for wakefulness. Richard Martin groaned unhappily, rolled over in bed, and ran his fingers through thinning hair. He was back asleep before he managed to get his feet out onto the floor.

The screeching clock came back to life five minutes later, and this time successfully rousted Richard from his bed. Retreating from his comfortable mattress, Richard stood up on creaky joints, flipped the clock over in his hand, and switched the alarm off. Setting the clock back down on it's humble bedside table, Richard peered around his plain apartment, at his bare walls and his clean carpet, and considered calling in sick to work. It wouldn't be the first time he had skipped a day of his dreary little work as a reporter for the Maine Freepress, a piddly little paper that catered to a few people in northern Maine. It's not as though there was ever anything interesting to report on here, anyway.

His town was quiet, inactive, and peaceful. Just the way he preferred things. He wandered over to the window and stared out, noting without interest that it would be yet another cloudy day, and the boats along the piers across town were tied up for the day. No doubt the water would be choppy and unforgiving. Looking out at the somber sky, he didn't really see anything that suggested he should go to work. It looked dreary and unhappy outside, and he'd be much more content to sit at home in front of his personal computer, reading up on national news and checking out something pornographic.

_God bless the internet. _He thought to himself quietly, turning to peer through his open door which led into the living room, where a laptop sat charging dutifully for his usage. After long mental debate, he finally resigned himself to shower and dress for work, because he knew he'd end up more bored at home than working, once it was all said and done. Might as well go into work and expend some energy.

Richard stopped for a moment in front of his bathroom mirror, still in his pajamas, before showering. He was getting on in age, about forty with salt-and-pepper hair that was threatening to fall out one day soon and leave him bald. Gray eyes drooped with morning exhaustion, and were underscored profoundly by dark sagging circles. Lord, he looked haggard and weathered. His hand moved to pat his belly, which was once upon a time lean and solid, but now all he felt was a bit of round, disgusting flab. He glanced over at the bathroom scale with a look of irritation, and wondered absently to himself where his youth had gone.

The shower was quick and cold, and as he stood stark and drying in the chilly air, he ran a comb through his hair and a brush across his teeth. Before long he was dressed in a button-down shirt and slacks. After long debate, he elected to rebel against the conformity of a tie, and went without one today. After a bowl of cold oatmeal accompanied by toast and coffee, Richard was off to work.

He was late for the bus, so he walked. The Maine Freepress offices were only across town, and the exercise felt good on his sleep-stiffened joints. As he went, he even managed to whistle a bit as he walked along sidewalks and across traffic free streets. He felt better now that he was out in the fresh air, and he came into the building of his employment with a springy step and a smiling face.

"You're late," Richard's boss intoned just as he had began to step into his humble office. Richard glanced up to regard his boss, Jack Faire. He was a good man to work under, very lenient on rules and easy going. They had played poker together on more than one occasion after work.

"I missed the bus today, Mr. Faire. I promise it won't happen again." Richard said, smiling sincerely as he did. He knew Jack didn't care that he was a few minutes late. He never cared so long as everyone got their jobs done right. Still, everyone in the offices went through the motions of being sorry, being angry, and being remorseful for their tardiness. Things rolled smoother that way, when Jack's supervisor visited.

"See that it doesn't," Jack pretended to chide, and then said more softly, "Jesus, Rich. You look like hell."

Richard didn't try to pretend that he didn't know how he looked. He was old and sunken, pock-marked with age and his brow was creased by worry long ago. Now, though, he was tired – Not just tired from the morning, but very much world weary – and he felt it. With a resigned shrug, he murmured, "Yeah. I know."

"You should'a taken the day off," Jack commented with a frown, "You look like you need a vacation."

"Yeah, I guess I do," Richard returned, shrugging his shoulders again. He wasn't really sure if a vacation would be any less menial than everything else. He opened the door to his office and stepped inside, "I'll talk to ya' later Jack. Gotta get to working."

"All right, you do that Rich. Don't work too hard now," Jack said seriously, turning to walk away, "we wouldn't want you to drop dead from exhaustion."

"Yeah..." Richard echoed, staring at Jack's back for a short moment as he walked away. The cheer of his walk to work was sloughed away by the short chat with his boss, and for some reason he felt himself droop all over as he shut the door behind him. There was his desk, clutter free as usual, and his out-dated desktop computer, already on and humming softly because of the dirt in the cooling fans. He wished the tech people would fix that damned humming.

Walking over, he reclined in his old leather chair, which sunk back and creaked like his old joints had in the morning, and he tapped at the keyboard twice to turn the blank screen saver off. Sitting there, where he had left it, was his latest story. A pitiful piece on an upcoming art fair, to be held in the town park, sponsored by the school.

He sighed, his mouse pointer hovering over the minimize button at the top of his screen. No one should bother him for hours.. and his office was free of windows of any sort. He'd likely have most of the day to himself with his computer...

He shrunk down the article and began navigating folders, searching through his cybernetic labyrinth until he found the folder falsely labeled "Sources-Article 43". A small smile crept onto his face, and he peeked over the top of his computer monitor to assure that his door was shut securely.

When he had asserted that he was very much safe, he opened the folder, perused the files inside until he found the one he had hidden away on purpose. Clicking it, a new page opened on the screen, and before long he was typing away at his computer, working on his unfinished action novel. He was occupied with it for the rest of the day, and regretfully didn't accomplish a single word towards his next story.

_Oh well, _He thought wistfully to himself as he locked his office door behind him, _It can wait 'till the next issue._ He waved goodbye to the receptionist, and walked out into the crisp evening just in time to see the bus pull away from it's stop at the corner.

"Damn!" He cursed under his breath, unhappy. With an angry stomp in his pace, he trudged home in the chilly dark, wishing he had left a minute earlier. The whole way home, he muttered damn to himself, through the front door and up the stairs, until he jammed the key to his apartment home and let himself in.

"Damn..." He murmured one more time, softly, as he kicked off his shoes, pulled off his socks, and sank down onto the couch. The TV remote sat next to him, and his laptop waited dutifully on the coffee table, but he wasn't in the mood for entertainment. Not tonight.

Tears welled in Richard's eyes, and he found himself staring across the room at the latest photograph of his wife and daughter, both deceased. After a short moment, he dropped his head into his upturned palms and wept like a child for the better part of an hour.

He remembered the events perfectly, even though they had gone by couple of years ago, now. His daughter, six years old, running up to him and shouting gleefully, "_Daddy! Daddy! Lookit the fish I caught!_" And him responding, "_That's great honey! Why don't you go show mommy?_"

He remembered her running happily across the deck of the boat – nothing fancy, just his cousin's fishing boat that he had borrowed for a day of fun in the bay, one of the rare days the sun was out and shining happy. He remembered worrying that she'd slip and hurt herself on the deck...

"_Look mommy! See the fish I caught?_"

"_That's great honey! Wow!_"

Richard didn't know it, but his mouth silently worked, echoing the words as he remembered them in his head. So happy and pleasant. And he felt himself weeping against his palms, but he was too lost in the gray haze of his entrancing memories to realize why he was crying.

"_Look out darling, you'll fall over the edge!_" ... That's what his wife Daria had said. His daughter, Jenny, had been leaning over the rail to throw her quaint little fish back into the water. She should have been fine. She was wearing a lifejacket, after all. Everyone knew that the lifejackets were perfectly safe.

"_I'll be fine mommy! I'll... be... whu!_" She had fallen over the rails. They were too slick. She was off balanced. The boat was rocking. It didn't matter what the excuse was. She had fallen off. The boat was well out of the water, being decent sized, and she fell like a stone, legs first after toppling a couple of times in the air. Richard and Daria had raced to the edge. Jenny had screamed... so loud, shrilll... Helpless.

The lifejacket stayed afloat, but Jenny didn't. It was too big. It wasn't tight enough. It was defective. It didn't matter, either. Jenny slipped out, and Richard and his wife had dived in after her. They swam for more than an hour, diving as far as they could, screaming for Jenny, for help, for anyone. They had lost her, though, to the icy grasp of the churning sea. They reported it to the police, and the coast guard promptly swept the area... When the body turned up, Richard felt broken like a twig.

That night, Daria caught pneumonia and got very sick. Richard was with her every moment he could be, but in the end, she died of the pneumonia and complications with her treatment, and Richard had felt like he couldn't stand another moment of the painful existence he was living.

_But I did. _He thought to himself bitterly, staring down into his wet hands. He had lived on, moved on, and kept going. He had tried dating a bit, but couldn't really get back into it. He was older now, and tired, and sad. And he missed his family. He looked mournfully up at the photograph again, at both of their smiling faces, and sighed. He couldn't cry any more, but he fell asleep, right there on the couch where he sat, too weak to get up and move. Too weak to do anything but sleep.

This is Richard.


	3. Chapter Two: An Email

**Silent Hill: Misty Dreams**

A work of fiction by Lucas S. Speed

---Chapter Two: An E-mail

The alarm clock buzzed it's orchestra of grating melody in the morning, as it had always done and always would, but Richard didn't hear it. Couldn't hear it. He was trapped in a horrible dream in the next room, and only sweat and cried in his sleep as the alarm clock tried in vain to wake it's owner. Richard didn't wake up until much later, and then he felt very ill and unpleasant. He wasn't going to work today... wasn't going to bother with it. A glance a the clock told him already he was three hours late. No point in going in anyway. He sighed, wiped the sleep from his eyes, and flipped his laptop open to check his e-mail. It had gone unattended for some time now, anyway. He was distracted by want of coffee as his computer booted, though, and walked away before the login screen became visible.

Bleary eyes, Richard looked at his empty coffee pot, a small thing with a black base, stained from leaving coffee in it with the burner on. It was filthy, and he tossed it in the sink with a laborious sigh hissing between thin lips. That was fine, though. He didn't have much coffee left anyway – probably a better idea to conserve the stuff he owned for harder times, he guessed. Whatever made him feel better about dropping extra cash for the expensive stuff, he supposed. He had fallen asleep in his clothes, so he only slipped on a coat and his shoes before stepping out and locking his apartment behind him. His neighborhood was far, far from bad, but he still didn't trust anyone enough to leave his few expensive possessions unguarded and unlocked in his apartment while he was away.

He stepped out into the hallway feeling most haggard, and trudged to the elevator as though the weight of the world was upon his shoulders. He still remembered last night. He remembered exactly why he had woken up on the couch, and it made him ashamed. A grown man, crying like a baby because he couldn't come to terms with his memories. Because he blamed himself for a series of accidents. That's all it was.

_But I was the reason they were out there, on that boat, _He thought to himself, in a grim tone. He pushed the button once, twice, slammed it in repeatedly, and then finally just gave an anxious sigh. This was no way to begin enjoying his extemporaneous day off. The rusty old doors finally swished open with surprising ease for their age, and he stepped into the mobile cell with a young woman from the floor above him, dressed all in pink and blue, with her blonde hair bobbed shoulder-length and fitted neatly under a pink baseball style cap. He thought her name was Michelle, but he wasn't sure. He had only seen her a few times.

"Hi." He mumbled, his voice hoarse and tired from sleep. She smiled politely and nodded, but didn't say anything. From the look of her, he'd have guessed she was off to go out on the town with her friends, the way she was well dressed and had her large, bulging purse slung over her shoulder. She was a pretty woman, and if Richard hadn't felt like absolute crap already, he might have tried talking to her. He found himself regretting that he didn't take a shower or brush his teeth before going out this morning, as he felt filthy, a bit, and was sure he looked like a mess. They rode the whole way down in silence, walked practically side-by-side from the elevator to the front door, down the steps, onto the sidewalk, and then split ways without another word exchanged between them. Another chance at another life slipped through his fingers.

Starbucks was only a block away, but Richard didn't like their industrialized, snot-nosed crowd, their employees, or their half-assed coffee. He kept walking, wondering absently to himself if the whole chain was so bad, or if the one in his town was just exceptionally unpleasant. He wasn't sure which one he thought to be the truth, and he didn't really let the question linger in his mind. The memories of the night before were still haunting him, and he walked in a numb trance, not aware of where he was going, and yet going to the Coffee Shop & Bakery a few more blocks from his apartment. He liked the place, it was cozy and usually uncrowded, and he liked the name, too. It was a no-nonsense kind of name, it didn't bullshit about what it was selling. He snorted at the notion of Starbucks, wondering what sort of appeal they were shooting for with that sort of name.

So he trudged onward, dragging his tired feet along the pavement and wondering to himself why things had happened as they did. He could almost see her, right in front of him... Daria, with her long brunette hair, always silken and beautiful, often pulled back into a thick pony tail. The smile on her thin pink lips, her creamy skin which was, to him, flawless. And her eyes... sparkling blue facets of light, highlighted by just the perfect touch of makeup, and the occasional quirk of her slender eyebrows. He remembered her in her favorite shirt, a t-shirt with a cynical phrase on it... something that mocked communism, he remembered. She hadn't worn too many girlie things... She was more of a tomboy that most people realized, often wearing jeans and sneakers, while her daughter pranced about dreaming of wearing gowns and riding unicorns and all other sorts of things whimsical.

Jenny had been the image of her mother, practically the same woman, as though she had been hit with a shrink ray, or something else nonsensical. She had the same color hair, and eyes, and she tried to fashion her hair the same way her mother did whenever she could. She had just started school the year before. He counted the years on his fingers and thought she might have been in third grade now. Yes, somewhere in that region. Third grade, with lots of friends, and birthday parties and Christmas presents...

A car whizzed by and startled him from his reverie, splashing water on his ankles and soaking his shoes. _Damnit. _He heaved one great, angry sigh, and tried to let all of his sorrow filter through his nose for a moment, before he realized he was standing outside the door of the Coffee Shop & Bakery. Perfect timing. That was about the only good thing he had going for him, he supposed, and he walked inside with a false smile on his face.

"Hey Richie! How's it been? What can I get ya?" The man behind the counter said with a huge grin, glad to see one of his favorite customers visit him.

"Hey Steve. I need a large coffee to go and... ah..." Richard peered at the array of doughnuts behind the glass, considering. He didn't really want any of them, but he knew he was hungry from the griping feeling in his stomach.

"That, and that." Richard said, pointing.

"Sure thing, Rich." The man, Steve, said cheerily, bagging the doughnuts selected and making his coffee, "y'know, I haven't seen ya come in this early in a long time. You quit that job of yours yet?"

"No," Richard said, dispassionately.

"Ah, taking a day off then?"

"Yeah." His voice was weak, almost dead. He felt bad enough, he didn't need the reminder that he should be working.

"Okay, here you go. Enjoy. Have a good day off Richie... You look like you could use it." Steve commented to Richard's back as he walked out the door. Richard nodded as he walked out, sure that he must have looked like hell. He walked home feeling dazed, almost, and sipping at his coffee, which was full of sugar and milk. Just the way he liked it.

He walked past Starbucks, but didn't realize it enough to think about how annoying that place was.

_Look mommy! See the fish I caught?_

He pushed the button on the elevator twice and waited impatiently, took another sip of his coffee, and tapped his foot on the floor. God, he hated this elevator. If it were a human, it would have to be the laziest bastard on earth. The doors finally swished open and he stepped in, alone, and pushed the button for his floor. Obediently, the doors hissed closed. He was trapped, alone, in the mobile cell, with nothing but coffee and cheesy elevator music to keep him company.

_That's great honey! Wow!_

The doors finally opened again, just when he was thinking he had been on the elevator a tad too long, and the expanse of empty hallway greeted him in all of it's glorious loneliness. He wished he had said something to Michelle earlier. Maybe she was just as lonely as he was right now. He imagined she was off seeing a movie or shopping by herself, wishing she had said something to him. He quickly shook his head, though, figuring she had friends and was probably out with them. Yeah, that made more sense. He held the bag of doughnuts under his arm and jammed the key into it's hole, slamming the teeth over the tumblers and turning, unlocking the door and throwing it open. This day was not going too well.

He shut the door behind him with a kick, and set his doughnuts and coffee down on the coffee table in his living room. He wished, absently, that he could get over his self-pity, but he knew he couldn't. He perused the internet while he munched on flakey pastry and chocolate and sipped at his still hot coffee, neglecting his e-mail for the moment. The mailbox full of spam could wait. He looked at the news, and saw there was an earthquake in Asia. Collateral damage and the death toll were already soaring from the disaster. _Now, there are some people who should feel sorry for themselves. _

_Look out darling, you'll fall over the edge!_

Yeah, he did feel like he was falling over an edge. He saw the bottom of the hole he was falling into, too, and he didn't like it. It wasn't a pretty sight at all. He sipped at his coffee again and finally clicked his mailbox. A few letters about wonder drugs, porn, and penile enlargement sat there, a couple of messages from internet friends, and most interestingly, a letter from Jack Faire sat at the top of his inbox. Richard perked a bit and opened it, curious to see what it said.

The e-letter read:

_Hey Rich,_

_Glad to see you're taking that day off. I thought you should. You looked pretty bad the other day. How's the story on the art fair coming?_

_It doesn't really matter, I'm giving the story to Jonathan. You deserve something better than writing about an art fair, don't you think? What do you say to an all expenses paid vacation? It'll be on the clock, too, because I want you to do some reporting for our travel page while you're there. Have you ever been to Silent Hill, Rich? It's a tourist attraction in western Maine, maybe four or five hours of driving away. It's supposed to be a real nice place on the lake, with a bunch of shops and an amusement park. I want you to go down and spend a few days – as long as you need to – and come back with a column for the travel page about how nice the place is. I need you to enjoy yourself too, Rich. You're looking too green around the gills lately, y'know?_

_Anyway, write me back, and leave as soon as you can, okay?_

_-Jack Faire_

_PS: Hope you don't mind the typos. I don't know where the damn spellchecker is on my e-mail._

Richard stared at the screen for a long time, like it was some sort of ghost, or angel. He was absolutely stunned. A vacation? That was the nicest thing Jack had ever done in the history of nice things. It would definitely help get his mind off things, and god knows he needed that.

He leaned forward in his seat and quickly went to typing, writing up a thank you, acceptance, and a promise that he'd do a great job reporting on the place. Silent Hill. He committed the name to memory. Sounded nice. He went through his other e-mail afterward, but none of it was nearly as important as his new job assignment. This was great. Phenomenal, he dared to think. He hopped up from his seat after a long moment of consideration, clicked the laptop shut, and went to his room to pack.

_I'll be fine mommy!_

Bad memories caught in him like an icy barb had stuck in his stomach. He felt bad that he was happy about this trip. Shouldn't he be sulking over his lost daughter and wife? He saw their picture in his mind's eye as he tossed clothes into a suitcase, and he felt very guilty, very suddenly. He felt like he was the worst sort of scum on the earth for trying to enjoy himself when he had let them die. That's how he felt about it, anyway. He felt like it was his fault.

Of course, that wasn't true. He had seen a psychiatrist and been given medicine to keep him calm. He remembered the therapist telling him that it wasn't his fault, and that the medicine would help him through the depression. That had been a long time ago, though, and he thought he had gotten over it. He sank down onto the bed next to his open suitcase, and he thought about crying. It wouldn't do him any good, he knew that much. It would just tire him out, and he'd have that long drive ahead of him. He sighed and resigned himself to grate his teeth and stuff clothing into his suitcase, trying his best to think about other things. He spent a while wondering about the town, and it actually distracted him pretty well. Silent Hill. It sounded less pleasant and more gloomy to him, now that he was in a bad mood. It seemed like the kind of name you'd give a big, ominous hill with a tree for hanging people on it. The artist in him drew that picture in his mind quickly enough, a silhouetted hill with the crimson sunset behind it, and a huge oak, with many bodies hanging from the branches and swaying in the wind.

Richard shuddered and willed the picture away from his mind. It was a nice resort town. That was all that mattered. It was supposed to be a nice town on the lake. That sounded nice to him. He bet there were lots of kids and a big nice park, and plenty of dogs and friendly people. He tried to picture the place in his mind, with lots of people and tourists milling around, and boats on the lake and children giggling as they ran along the streets. The colors tried in vain to come together into the picture, but he couldn't see anything but that damned tree. He shook his head and sighed, clicking his suitcase closed. It would be a long, long drive if he couldn't get those morbid thoughts out of his head.


	4. Chapter Three: Fog on the Road

**Silent Hill: Misty Dreams**

A work of fiction by Lucas S. Speed

----Chapter Three: Fog on the Road

Richard tossed his belongings into the trunk of his dilapidated old Mazda Millenia as the sun was setting on the horizon, two suitcases filled with clothes and toothbrushes and a camera, and all the other things people would carry with them on a nice vacation. He doubted he'd use much of it though. Glancing down into the trunk of his car, he felt rotten inside, and he didn't even want to go to Silent Hill. He wanted, more than anything, to sit home in gloomy light and think about his wife and daughter.

_Maybe I need some more of that medicine, _He thought to himself, thinking of the medicine he used to talk to keep himself calm. _Maybe then I could enjoy this trip. _He shut the trunk with a slam, noting the rusting green paint on his car needed to be washed, but it probably wouldn't ever get clean. Richard resigned himself to his unhappy assignment and slid behind the wheel of the car, jangling his keys in one hand and slamming the door shut behind him with the other. Sitting on the passenger seat next to him was his laptop computer, sealed in it's protective case, with a thin wire running from a small opening in the zipper to his car lighter, charging it. More and more, Richard couldn't help but feel his computer was just about the only friend he had left. Still, it was a reliable thing, upgraded with extra RAM and a video card to deal with it's growing age. He had read that most computers became outdated every six months, but he had certainly had his laptop for much longer – almost two and a half years now. He sighed at the depressing thought, reached up and rattled the two strings of beads that hung from his rear-view mirror, both of them small memorials of his daughter and wife, and then jammed the key into the ignition.

The car was argumentative about starting, voicing itself quite clearly with whining resign about turning over. Eventually, though, it did roar to life, and all of the gauges responded accordingly. The gas read full, which was a testament to how little Richard drove now-a-days, and the RPM gauge leapt up for a moment as the car came to life. Cold air poured out of the air conditioner vents, and static roared on the radio that was left on. Richard shuddered under the sudden blast of chill and the loud assault on his eardrums, and he quickly turned both knobs to turn the radio and the air conditioner off. Odd. He couldn't remember the last time he drove and listened to the radio, but he must have been listening to a station that wasn't around anymore. Richard just shrugged his shoulders, not mourning the loss of the unknown radio station, and put the car in drive.

He drove in silence, not bothering to try and find a radio station he liked. He spoke with himself occasionally, and sometimes he pulled over to the side of the road to regard the map he had printed out for himself, courtesy of and his faithful laptop computer. Richard wasn't much of a navigator, so the map confused him and the trip took along time through the night, and the timing of his trip meant that many of the roads were desolate and dark, and he had all the time in the world to think about his family and how he hadn't been able to do anything to help them. More than anything else, he couldn't deny that it was his fault they died. The fishing trip had been his damn idea, and it had gotten them both killed.

At one point in the drive, he opted to try the radio. Turning on the volume, he was greeted with the same blast of static he had received when he first turned the car on. Made sense, after all, he hadn't changed the station since then. He spun the tuning wheel and listened for a station, but all he got was varying sorts of static, and the occasional strange word that signified he wasn't quite in reach of a tower to hear it properly. After he had received nothing but static and had cycled through all the stations a couple of times, he shut the radio off with a profound sigh. Back to his silent brooding, it seemed.

At the end of a particularly lonely stretch of highway, Richard pulled off and stopped at a truck stop that was open twenty-four hours, but even it was surprisingly empty. As he entered, he saw that there was only one man eating at the bar, with a greasy cheese sandwich in his hands and his back hunched so that his mouth and food were over his plate. Behind the counter was a large man in a stained white apron, bald, with thick black eyebrows and squinty eyes. He gave a polite smile in Richard's direction as he came in.

"Can I git ya' somethin' mister?" The man at the counter asked, "Ain't much cooking this late at night, but maybe some coffee and a sandwich'd do ya right?"

Richard fumbled with his pockets for a few seconds and produced some one-dollar bills. He dropped a few on the counter and nodded, "Yeah, coffee sounds good. And a ham sandwich, please."

"Sure thing. Name's Bill by the way. We don't get too many strangers out around here," The cook said, eyeing Richard as though he were indeed strange. He took the money anyway though.

"Nice to meet you Bill. I'm Richard.. This place got a bathroom?"

"Nice to meet you too Rich. Bathroom's that way." Bill said with a big smile, pointing.

Richard wandered off to the bathroom while Bill went about preparing his food and coffee, and as soon as he stepped through the door marked "Men", he was affronted by far too many biological smells and not nearly enough antiseptic. The bathroom was dingy and cruddy, and none of the urinals were flushed. The stalls were dinged up and smelled rotten, and covered inside and out with graffiti. One stall door hung loose from it's top hinge, threatening to fall one day. As Richard stood in front of a urinal to relieve himself, he noted with poor interest some of the gibberish written on the stall door that hung open. A lot of talk of mothers, who to call for a good time, and what bands rocked the hardest. His interest perked most profoundly, though, when he noticed the scrawl of black crayon towards the bottom of the door. It was sloppy, and most likely a child's handwriting. It said: "_Mommy says if it's too foggy on the roads, we're not going to Silent Hill today._"

_Odd that a kid would write something like that down, _He pondered quietly to himself. He finished his business and, noting the grime that crusted the urinal handle, decided not to disease himself by flushing it, rather, he let the urine sit and went to the sinks, which were just barely useable. There was no soap or paper towels, so he walked out of the restroom drying his hands on his pants, and was greeted with the welcome sight of a mug of coffee and a sandwich on a plate at his seat, and his change arranged neatly beside it. The man who had been eating had left, and Bill was wiping down the countertop.

"You're out of paper towels." Richard said as he took his seat, although he was quite sure that the man already knew. Bill didn't look up or say anything, and Richard ate his meal in peace. The ham sandwich was good, but the toast it was on was a bit greasy, and the coffee was straight black without sugar or milk in it, and it made Richard's stomach churn. It wasn't his type of coffee at all, but he didn't feel like complaining. It would keep him awake later, and that's what mattered.

He said a polite goodbye to Bill after he had finished, and left the change on the counter on his way out as a tip. His Millenia fought with him for a bit, and then it finally roared to life, spurting out static and cold air just as it had earlier that evening. Odd. Richard went to turn the knobs down, and reasoned that he must have nudged them when he was getting out of the car earlier. Without a glance back at the quiet little truck stop, Richard turned on his headlights and continued off into the darkness.

The fog on the road reminded him of the writing he had seen in the bathroom, and glancing at his map, he saw that Silent Hill was getting much closer now. He'd probably stop there at it's hotel and sleep until noon the next morning, he thought to himself, planning his vacation out already. He's check out the lake and the amusement park tomorrow, and write about it that night. He wanted it to be quick and concise, and to get in and out as easily as he could. He opted to try the radio once more, figuring that this close to a town, there had to be something decent to listen to floating around the airwaves. He spun the dial through the stations again, but all he got was the same squeal of static discharge, and decided his radio must have been broken.

He turned it off and went back to driving, thinking of his wife and trying to keep his head from nodding. He was getting really tired now, and the thought of that hotel was just too beautiful for him to handle. Before long, his eyelids were trying their hardest to close, and he thought he was seeing shapes in the fog, which was now curling thick like soup around his car. He could barely see four yards in front of him, but he accredited that to the darkness and the way the fog reflected his headlights.

He had been semi-conscious, dozing a bit at the wheel, when it ran out in front of him. Well, not so much ran as scurried. All he saw was the black silhouette of something racing across the road, but he wasn't fast enough to slam stop the car in time. He heard a loud squealing, something like an injured dog but much, much louder, and he came to a jarring stop after he had thumped all of his tires over the form. He killed the car, quickly, and hopped out, racing around behind to see what he had hit. There at the back, all he could see were skid marks, fog, and lots of blood. Everywhere. On the back of his car, on the street, on his tires. Everywhere. It was as though the dog he had hit exploded into blood. But, there was no dog, at all. It must have already dragged itself off the road. Richard rubbed his eyes, called out, and looked around a bit on the side of the road, hoping that whatever it had been, it didn't belong to anybody.

After ten minutes of searching, he couldn't find anything, and he reluctantly got back in his car with the mental resolve to stay more alert in his mind. What if that had been a person? He would have killed them, and it would have been his fault, and he would have been a murderer. Grim thoughts hung in his mind as he started driving again, more carefully this time. He didn't get far, however, before his car began to sputter, and then finally died. He hopped out promptly, and though he wasn't much of a mechanic, could see immediately why his car had elected to stop trying. Behind the car was a thin, long trail of liquid, and further inspection revealed it to be the contents of his gas tank. The dog he had hit earlier, he reasoned, must have knocked a hole in the rusty underside of his car, and that hole must have leaked out his gas.

"Damnit!" He shouted into the fog, kicking at his tire and clenching his fists. This was just GREAT! Judging from his map, he was really close to the town, too. Infact, a few minutes walking would have him on Sanford Street, and from there it was just a short jog to the Hotel, it seemed. He sighed, and decided to leave his car where it was – after all, no one could take it with a hole in the gas tank. He took a moment to stash his laptop in his trunk with his belongings, and then started walking through the thick mist, reminding himself to come back tomorrow with a tow truck. For now, he was exhausted and the walk ahead of him seemed none too pleasant, so he'd just go to the hotel, check in, and sleep.

The fog seemed to curl around him like malevolent fingers, and he shuddered as a chill breeze cut against his skin. Silent Hill didn't seem so pleasant right now.


	5. Chapter Four: Three Furies

**Silent Hill: Misty Dreams**

A work of fiction by Lucas S. Speed

-----Chapter Four: Three Furies

The road seemed to stretch on past Richard's feet for an eternity, and yet it was only a infinitely small patch of pavement he could see through the foggy stew that frothed around him in the cold air. If he had been tired before in the pleasant atmosphere of his Mazda Millenia, he was now wide awake in the icy air of the outskirts of Silent Hill, and truly there was an icy barb of sickness in his stomach as he replayed the scene of the hit-and-run in his head, visualizing again and again the explosion of blood all over the rear end of his car, the undercarriage, the wheels, and the road. He couldn't imagine anything short of an enormous sack of blood doing that... And yet, he had seen it. The further he walked, the more he thought to himself that it couldn't have possibly been a dog. Of course, he couldn't really think of anything else that would leave that kind of mark, either.

It was unsettling, to say the least, and his tired eyes were playing tricks on him every step of his weary way to Silent Hill, to the Lake View Hotel that seemed so very nice and inviting at this time of night. He saw figures in the mist, just for flickering instances, and was almost sure he had seen the silhouette of a woman once, but it was just a wisp of fog in the night. Not just his exhaustion or the mist though, but the darkness of the night sky seemed to toy with his perception just as easily as everything else. This fog was dark, nearly black, and his pathway was guided only by the muted light of the stars and moon overhead, far above the canopy of mist. For the most part, he found himself relying upon the sound of his feet crunch asphalt, and often times he thought he heard other noises, as the paranoid are often prone to do. Some of them were subtle, like the crunching gravel echoing in the mist around him, making him think that footsteps were behind his own, but others were more frightening, causing him to quicken his pace and hurry towards his goal, like the low growl of something in the woods along the road. Imagination or not, it scared him senseless.

He was on Sanford Street now, staring into the fog and not seeing the length of desolate road still between him and the Lake View Hotel. He was jogging, now, and his old lungs were wheezing, but he was nervous and tired and wanted a warm bed to be safe in, because he knew all these silly, childish fears would melt away once he saw another human face, and once he had hid himself behind four walls and beneath a rooftop. For now, though, Richard needed a distraction. Something to take his mind off the wheezing in his chest and the pain in his side, or he felt that he'd soon drop dead from exhaustion. Before he knew it, he found himself in the throes of remembering again, and he hardly saw where he was running. For all he knew, a million dark and evil things crept around him now, and he never would have noticed a sound in the world.

He found himself remembering, with vivid clarity, Jenny's sixth birthday party. That had been several years ago, and yet it was like each and every second was photocopied into his mind forever. He remembered all the trouble Daria had gone to put it all together, how she had been so exhausted she just sat back and smiled as her daughter ran about with her friends, and they had all enjoyed watching a cheesy clown make balloons into animals.

_Look mommy! A pony! It's a pony!_ Oh, how Jenny had waved that pink balloon about, and she was so happy it even made the clown-man smile in earnest, actually taking some bit of pride in his work. And all of her friends had pranced about with their balloon ponies, and dogs, and giraffes... And, oh, he remembered just how Jenny's eyes had sparkled in delight at the sight of all those brilliantly wrapped boxes, all just for her.

_Really Mommy? These are all for me? There's so many this year!_ Jenny had said that, with awe present in her tone, as she had sat on Daria's lap and peered at all the presents. Some were big, and some weren't, but they were all wrapped in purple and blue polka-dotted wrapping paper, and each one was topped with a light red bow. And beyond the table of presents was that cake, with six blazing candles stabbed into it's soft white exterior. Richard remembered that was the way Jenny liked her cake, with white cream cheese icing on the outside, and chocolate for the cake. He remembered, with absolute clarity, the scrawl of pink across the surface of the top, which read "Happy Birthday Jenny!". The cake was, like everything else about the party, Daria's handiwork. She loved Jenny more than anything in the whole entire world, and often times Richard thought that losing Jenny had been too much for Daria... that she had simply resigned herself to death after it had happened.

And, like looking through a clean glass window, Richard saw in perfect detail, the way Jenny had inhaled deep to blow away the flame of those six candles and make her glorious wish. In his mind, the vision was like an old movie, and he saw her draw back and suck in air, and waited expectantly for her to exhale and send the flames tumbling out, and bits of charred wick showering down onto the creamy white surface of that beautiful cake. In his mind, though, no wishing breath erupted from his daughter's mouth; instead came the most blood curdling screech he had ever heard in his entire life, something that had most definitely not happened that day.

And just like that, the visions, the delusional memories of a sad old man, all fell away to reveal that the shrieking hadn't been in his thoughts at all, but actually in the real world around him, and very much close to his position on the road. The banshee screech went up again, echoing throughout the mist and threatening to shatter Richard's eardrums straight to hell. He couldn't see anything in the fog, but he squinted as hard as he could, peering as far as his old eyes would let him into the foggy depths. The screeching cry came again, from directly in front of him, and again, and again and again, over and over, and now it sounded as though it was all around him.

He was running now, full speed despite creaky joints and bad ligaments. He wasn't just frightened or worried anymore, but he was downright terrified! The shrieking echoed all around him, renewing itself constantly and becoming a horrific dirge that chased him and at the same time outran him, and he didn't know if it was behind him, in front of him, or surrounding him on all sides. Perhaps, even, it was above him, but that was too horrible to think about. The mist curled this way and that, making everything out to look like a gruesome monster, or vicious beast, and Richard found himself suddenly acting like a whimpering child, submitting to every fear he had ever experienced now as he raced for the Lake View Hotel.

A rock, most deviously placed, caught the toe of his shoe and sent him flailing forward onto the gravel surface of Sanford Street, his face and hands being immediately stung in the darkness by stray pieces of rock that were pointed just right to stab into his skin. And, worst of all, was the screeching, horrible shrieking that pounded in all around him, threatening to crush him with sound. He scrambled to his knees and eventually his feet as fast as he could, bleeding just a bit, but getting closer to the Hotel and safety. There were street lights now, some of them dimmed from age, but most of them poured vibrant yellow light out onto the misty road, where it was immediately obscured by the fog.

The shrieking grew louder as he ran, and a sick churning gripped at his guts as he thought that the source may be waiting for him, just laying in wait, further down the road. Of course, that was childish. This whole thing was childish. There was no such thing as monsters, and there was some logical explanation for it all. He told himself this, but his pace barely slowed, and his eyes were still wide with unbridled terror. He was so close now... he was sure of it!

_Look mommy! A pony!_

And there it was – the source of his terror. It stood in his path, blocking him like some devious monster, some vicious troll blocking the only bridge in the whole world that could take him where he needed to be. At first, he thought it was a small group of people, silhouetted by the flickering downpour of yellow luminescence, shambling along across the asphalt pavement. As he got closer though, and the shrieking became so intense that it vibrated the hollow cavity in his chest and made his head pulse with pressure and excess blood, he saw that the thing in the streetlight was nothing human.

It could have been human, once. Several humans, in fact. It's flesh was gray and slimy, with a thick, oily sheen to it that seemed to suggest a mucus around it's entirety. It was bloated and disfigured, oozing pus and thick black gore in the places where it's skin had burst. Five legs protruded from the torso, and they were all pointed so that the thing was in a constant battle with itself to move in any direction at all. Three arms waved madly about, one thick arm on the left, and two thinner ones on the right side of the body. A heavy, clinking metal chain wrapped all around the thing's torso and shoulders, binding it about the stomach and chest, and was held fast by a thick yellow padlock, courtesy of the kind folks at MasterLock. Most horrific of it's features, though, was it's three heads, all protruding from separate necks, which stretched and pulled at the skin and resulted in much bone showing through gruesome tears, ripped as easily as if it were fabric. The faces, while bloodied and near destroyed, resembled somewhat the likeness of a man and two females, one a young girl and the other and older, wrinkled mother, possibly even a grandmother. Together, these three-lives-in-one were the cause of the discordant keening that had chased Richard through the fog and scared him relentlessly. Now that he saw the thing though, the source of the sound, he felt like he might faint. He backed away, and before he could stop himself, he was purging his lunch and dinner onto his shirt and the pavement beneath his feet.

The old woman's hand reached out for Richard as the feet all shuffled in different directions, each struggling to go a different way. The hand was shriveled and crooked, and it grasped in futility in Richard's direction as he puked his sandwich and coffee up. The other beings seemed to care little for Richard's presence, and continued to screech as they strained to go other ways, independently. Richard looked up, slowly, and the sight of that gnarled hand, that bloated, DEAD hand, reaching for him, caused terror to quake down his spine in a most grand, devastating fashion. He backed away, his knees trembling, as he stared at the creature. Whatever this was, it was horrible, and he wondered what he should do. He turned back, peering down the empty road and thinking over what all was back that way. A gasless car, some blood on the road, and a truckstop some sixty miles away. Other than that, the walk back was a desolate, barren one. When he looked back the other way to face his second option, though, he was met with the most surprisingly pleasant sight he could find: The road was clear, and the three-headed shrieker was gone. Had he imagined it? He rubbed his eyes and shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts as the rancid smell of his own vomit filled his nose and threatened to make him sick again. He could see blood smattered on the pavement still where the thing had stood, and that was proof enough for him that the... the... _thing_, whatever it had been, had really stood there. So, where had it gone?

Richard quickly decided he didn't want to find out, and ran as fast as his old joints would allow the rest of the way to the Lake View Hotel, hoping that he'd see no more of the shrieking monstrosity. It had shaken him deeply, and he wished he was home.

And, just as he had wished, he didn't see the thing again on the way to Hotel. The road was completely silent, empty, and barren, save for the mist that was a constant part of Silent Hill. Richard wasn't relieved when he got to the Hotel, though. He walked up to the door with trepidation, looked around, and wondered what the hell was going on. He didn't bother knocking, and he wasn't quite sure he wanted to even bother touching the door.

Of the Lake View Hotel... The door was the only thing that stood unburned.


	6. Chapter Five: Ashes

**Silent Hill: Misty Dreams**

A work of fiction by Lucas S. Speed

-----Chapter Five: Ashes

The only thing Richard could see of the entire Lake View Hotel was smoldering embers and ashes fluttering like morbid, black butterflies flapping through the slate, gray shroud of fog. Dark smoke still curled about in the air from some parts of the collapsed, ruined building, and some of the cinders still glowed hot, furious yellow in the dim light. Some of the supporting timber remained, though it was charred black and crippled, but most of the structure besides that had collapsed. Standing completely untouched by the flames, however, was the large, sturdy door. It's frame was charred to ash, but there it stood, supported by nothing at all but it's own balance. The doorknobs shone with heat, a bright red in the dim morning – for Richard was sure that by this time it was no longer night, but very early in the morning. For a moment, he contemplated kicking the door down to step into the ruined building, but quickly decided that if the fire couldn't destroy that doorway, who was he to try?

He ducked his head low and clambered through some of the black-charred support boards, which had once been the outer wall near the door, and as easily as that he was inside the Lake View Hotel. He could see shattered remains of glass windows, and he guessed the area near the door was the receptionist desk. To his utmost horror, he approached the ashes that were once a desk, and saw that a very black, very smoking corpse lay among the ashes there, as though the receptionist had been dutifully doing her duties and the fire had ambushed her without warning. He backed away as quickly as he could, afraid he'd start vomiting again, and instead explored a different direction. He saw the flame-blackened remains of what must have once been a staircase, but knew immediately that the remaining wood on the stairs would be far, far to weakened by the fire to hold him. There wouldn't be much exploring to do upstairs anyway though, he figured from looking up. Only a few floor supports and boards were even still existent up there. With the image of the three-headed shrieker still fresh in his mind, he picked over the ruins cautiously, though he wasn't even sure why he was still looking.

More dead bodies as he came upon the dining room. Dead bodies, shattered plates, and smoldering embers. That was about all that was to be had in that room. Still, he looked about, picking over the broken glass and the red-hot silverware that littered the ground. Everything was still smoking, still hot, and still glowing. Richard couldn't help but wonder if he had arrived just as the inferno had died out... And he wondered what sort of a fire could have caused so much devastation so fast. None of these people had tried to get out, it seemed. They were just there, at their wrecked tables, as though they had been too busy with their meals to get up. It was horrible, and he could hardly stand the look of it any more. He explored only a bit longer, and then quickly made his way back to the main lobby, trying not to be sick.

As he stepped through the supports of a burned out wall and found himself back in the lobby, he looked over at the receptionist and she was still there, smoking and black and none too pretty any more. He wondered absently how old she was. If she had been pretty. If she had choked to death or burned first. Tears were rolling down his cheeks and he didn't know it. Salty tears dripped down and splashed against the ash carpet, soaking just a bit of the blackness at his feet. Richard sighed and walked towards the exit, and saw for the first time something strange on the inner side of the door. An odd symbol was etched, sloppily, into the grain of the door. Roughly, Richard thought it was a circle with an X in it, and an arrow pointing down. Instinctively, he looked down at his feet, and saw to his utter amazement that a piece of paper sat there, completely intact, without a single char mark on it. Bending down to retrieve it, he wondered how in the world it had survived the blaze.

" X marks the sad spot..." He read aloud, the only words on the sheet. It was written in hasty scrawl, with a red crayon, and was none too impressive, though it was ominous enough. It sent a shudder of trepidation down his spine, and he absently flipped the page over to be sure that there was nothing on the other side.

The other side, however, wasn't blank at all. In fact, it was a tourist map of Silent Hill, the entire town marked there for him to see. Richard was far from relieved by the sight, though, because the map was marked in several places with little red X's. Some were on buildings, some on streets, some were on the outskirts of the town. Some, he noticed with an arched brow, were marked right smack in the middle of the lake. In fact, if he had to guess, it seemed that one could hardly walk anywhere in Silent Hill without landing on a "sad spot". How utterly strange. Still, if he ignored the X's, he figured that the map might prove useful, and he folded it up and stuffed it away in his back pocket for later. Richard was just about to crouch through the burned out wall and leave the horrible little Hotel, when his blood ran icy cold and he remembered the sight of that three headed _thing _on the street. He remembered, too, the sounds that he had heard, those feral growls and other eerie noises in the night. He quickly turned back, glanced about the wreckage, and hefted a plank from the debris that still seemed reasonably sturdy. Oh, and lucky him, it had a nail in one end!

"We'll see what's up this time." He said, clenching the ash-darkened wood in his hand. Hopefully, he'd have enough courage to fight back if he ran into the monster again.

Richard didn't notice until he was outside, but he had been strangling in the smoke and heat of the wreckage in the Hotel. Outside, the air was crisp and cool, and he shivered as the chill hit the sweat that had formed on his face and neck. He turned back, giving the Hotel one last, sad glance, before walking back down the pathway and onto the crunching gravel of the road. He didn't hear any shrieking monsters, or growling stalkers in the mist, but he held his makeshift weapon ready anyway, and walked slowly at first, to make sure nothing tried to sneak up on him under the noise of his own footsteps. His first impulse was, of course, to go back the way he had come and escape this hellish thing that was happening, but he only got twenty yards or so off of Sanford Street before he was met with a sheer line of absolute nothingness. That is to say, the entire earth had been shorn away, in a straight line, right there across the road, and it seemed to continue on forever. In the fog, Richard could only see a few feet in any one direction, but something inside of him told him that it was too far across and too far down for him to get back to his car.

"What... the hell?" He gasped, struggling to breathe as terror clenched an icy fist around his throat yet again. He sunk to the ground, grinding his already raw knees against the pavement. He leaned as far over the edge as he dared, staring down as far as he could and hardly believed what he saw. It was just... gone. How in the world did that much dirt just get up and... disappear? His limbs quaked and he forced himself to stand back up and scramble away from the edge of the earth. Things just got weirder and weirder. With one final, regretful sigh, he turned around and started walking the way he came. Absently, he flipped out the map and saw that he'd have to cross a bridge on Nathan Avenue to get into the rest of the town. He could have gone back up Sanford Street, but he knew that he didn't want to walk past the Hotel again. He never, ever wanted to walk past it again.

And so he wandered down Nathan Avenue, now, and eventually he came to the bridge. At first, all he noticed was the gentle slope as the road rose a bit, curving over the calm waters of Toluca Lake, far beneath him. Eventually though, he saw the guardrails on either side, and the road took on the shape of a two-lane bridge. Instinctively, Richard walked on the the pedestrian pathway on the side of the bridge, even though he hadn't seen a single car since he arrived at Silent Hill. In fact, now that he thought about it, that was pretty strange. He hadn't even seen any cars parked in the lot out in the front of the Hotel. Almost as though the mist was obliging him, however, he came upon a car on the bridge, stopped and dead, turned sideways across the divider line, with the driver side door swung open and the windshield smashed out. Upon further inspection, as he drew closer, Richard saw that the driver was still inside, and lots of blood had pooled onto the bridge beneath the car. The body inside was mangled, leaning against the steering wheel with it's forehead, and with it's left arm ripped completely off and resting in it's lap. It's jaw was torn clean off of it's skull, and ripped skin hung loose and rotting, as though it had been there for a long, long time. The blood was coagulating on the bridge and the body, and it was splattered all over the dash and the interior of the car.

Richard backed away from the corpse in prompt fashion, retreating from the scene as quickly as he could. Flies were buzzing around the decaying corpse, and the sick smell of death hit Richard in the gut, making him gag as he backed away. He wasn't sure what kind of wreck could cause damage to a human like that, but somehow he doubted it was even a wreck. There was no impact damage on the front of the car, and there were no other wrecked cars in the area for it to have hit. That thought made Richard's blood run cold, and he sped his pace up a bit, eager to get across the bridge. As he walked, he saw that long, black skid marks trailed behind the car for a long distance, probably spanning half the bridge, and he wondered one more time what exactly had happened to the driver. The mist continued to curl around him though, and never provided an answer to his questioning.

He had almost managed to calm down from the sick adrenaline that had hit him at the car when he heard the shrieking pierce the foggy air, and almost immediately his heart resumed it's trillion-mile-an-hour pace. He gripped his wooden plank hard in his hands, enough so that his knuckles had turned a pale color as the blood was draining out of them. He strained to hear again, expecting the screeching to continue as it had the first time, echoing all around him and scaring him half to death. It didn't come again with such rapidity though, rather, after twenty seconds or so of listening, the screeching noise came again. This time, though, he decided it didn't sound the same. The other screeching had been like some unearthly scream, but this one sounded more like huge nails on a huge chalkboard. The sound grated against his eardrums, but didn't press in with nearly as much volume as the three-headed-_thing _had done. The fact that the noises he was hearing was something new, though, did little to belay his fears. For all he knew, this thing would be infinitely more horrible than the last. He continued to walk down the street, but he did so with trepidation, and a slow pace.

The screeching noise came a few more times, and Richard held his wooden weapon over his shoulder like a baseball bat, ready to defend himself as best he could. The rusted nail on the end of the plank reassured him a little bit, even though he doubted he'd be giving lock-jaw to anything around here.

At first, Richard hadn't heard it over his own footsteps on the gravel, but as he got closer he could here a rather sickening crunching that sounded like something wet and disgusting being dragged across the pavement. The screeching had stopped, now that he was so close, and he felt cold, frightened sweat pouring out of his face, his armpits, and his palms. He heard, before he saw, the thing that was in the mist. It made a sort of strangled, choking noise, and it sounded a lot like someone with far too much snot in their nose and throat. It sounded just plain nasty, and it made Richard more nervous than he had already been. When it finally emerged from the shroud of black-gray mist, though, it was only a couple of yards away, and was vaguely human in shape. Only vaguely because it lacked any arms, or face, or neck. It looked, to put it simply, like a man wrapped up in some slimy gray skin, which was stretched so tight over the thing that Richard thought he could almost make out features where the face should have been. It shambled along on two wobbly legs, looking as though it might topple at any moment, and it came straight in Richard's direction. Most interesting was a disgusting looking hole in the thing's stomach, which oozed a brown-black substance that occasionally dripped onto the asphalt road, and when it did it sizzled and sent smoke curling through the air. If Richard had to hazard a guess as to what the stuff was, he'd have said either a very strong acid, or a very strong base. Either way, he didn't want the thing to touch him with it.

When it reared back, Richard had been in a silent daze, staring dumbly at the thing as it moved, and not really registering any danger. The sudden movement shook him back to life, and his knees trembled as he realized he was facing an honest-to-God monster, a thing out of horror movies and stories... Something that shouldn't be _real_. It made it's gargled, choking noise again as it leaned backwards, and at first Richard had thought it was about to fall backwards. Some blessed sense of danger in him, though, instructed his limbs to carry him away, and he leapt back as far as he could and backpedalled, scrambling in a most undignified manner to get away from the thing. When the acidic ooze spurted out of the hole in the thing's stomach and went spraying out towards him, Richard was suddenly very glad that he had moved back. The spray had come out like a cone, and there was a roughly conical shape on the ground now where the brown stuff was melting away the asphalt, sending a disgusting odor into the air along with thin wafts of black smoke. A stinging feeling in Richard's hand let him know that a droplet had landed there, and he was frantic to wipe it off with his sleeve. God, that shit _hurt_! It still stung after it was gone, but it looked as though he had saved his hand from any serious damage. Well, now Richard knew about the thing's wicked little trick, and he approached it with caution, side-stepping as he did and ready to avoid the next blast of acid.

The demon just gave Richard an eyeless stare as he circled so warily, occasionally shifting on it's wobbly-looking legs. It seemed, almost, as though it was challenging Richard to strike back. It had thrown down the gauntlet and the ceremonial first strike, and now it was Richard's turn. For whatever reason, the thing didn't attack again, and when Richard struck out it merely accepted the blow, the wood shuddering and glancing off it's head. Dark colored blood oozed out thick where the nail had struck it, and it looked as though it had already congealed inside of the thing's living body. It screeched again, defiantly, and Richard swung again and again, stabbing holes into it's featureless head and chest, until it finally fell, bleeding all over itself and writhing, and eventually that stopped, too. It stopped oozing and screeching, and lay very still before Richard was calm enough to walk away.

_Whatever the fuck that was, it was dangerous!_ Richard thought to himself, breathing raggedly and dragging his wooden plank along with him as he moved away from the stinking monster. He hoped to God that he'd never have to fight with one of those things again. Something was definitely wrong with Silent Hill, and Richard didn't like not knowing what was going on.

As far as he could tell, he was as far removed from God as he had ever been in his life.


	7. Chapter Six: Melanie

**Silent Hill: Misty Dreams**

A work of fiction by Lucas S. Speed

-------Chapter Six: Melanie

There was only a short stretch of Nathan avenue left before he would encounter the first buildings of the town. Squinting under the light of a dim street lamp, Richard studied his X marked map and saw that he was quickly coming up on a museum and a bowling alley. What an odd way to situate the attractions in this town. A bit further down the road, past the bowling alley, and he'd be in the main part of town. Or, if he branched off, he'd make his way to the Brookhaven Hospital. Several red X's marked the hospital though, and just reading the words sent a shiver down his spine, so he immediately decided he didn't want to go there.

So, it looked as though he was going to have to pass the historical society and a place called Rosewater Park to get into town. With a bit of trepidation, he noted that Rosewater Park was marked with another of those red X's – another 'sad spot'. He wished the mapmaker had gone to the trouble of marking the terrifying spots on here too... He'd have loved to avoid them all. Wishful thinking was getting him nowhere, though, and so he quickly folded the map back into a small rectangle and stuffed it into his back pocket. A cold breeze sliced into him and he shuddered, staring into the dimly lit fog that curled around the street before him. Absently, he wondered how many more monsters lurked between here and the outskirts of town. He wondered, too, if the main part of Silent Hill would be any safer.

As he walked, he thought quietly to himself about everything that had happened so far. Anxious and afraid, he was doing his best to make sense of it all, and he wasn't making much headway. There was the accident on the road... that was probably the first weird thing that happened. And then... that _thing _on the way to the hotel. That could have been a hallucination... It had disappeared quickly and Richard was pretty tired from driving all night... And then the Hotel was burned down...

Try as he might, Richard couldn't come up with anything for that one. All the metal was still white hot in that Hotel, and everyone was laying about as though they had been killed instantly. Then there was the huge gouge in the earth that kept him from going back to his car. There was no earthly way that could have happened in such a short amount of time... so it too went unexplained. The wrecked car... the only car he had seen so far, with it's driver armless and jawless and blood everywhere. He supposed there _could_ have been some way that happened realistically. He knew that car wrecks were dangerous, after all. And, finally, was his little dance with no-arm-Joe a few minutes back. That thing had nearly burned him alive, and it had taken several hits to go down. Richard could practically still smell the rancid scent in his nostrils. With so many unexplainable events, Richard had to believe that he himself was dreaming. That _almost_ made sense, until Richard looked down at his hand and took notice of the small, stinging circle of corroded flesh that would eventually become a scar. If this was a dream, it was the most vivid and frightening dream he had ever had. This was the kind of thing crazy people dreamed about...

_Maybe I'm going crazy._ He thought grimly to himself, _Or, if I'm not yet, I will be by the end of all of this_. As soon as the thought echoed through his head, he shuddered at how serious it sounded. That wasn't possible. He couldn't be crazy! He was a normal person, not some nut who needed a padded room and a straight jacket. The more he argued to himself, the more hopeless it felt. He thought that he might as well try to deny the sky's existence, or the very fog around him.

A stray light attracted his attention, thankfully, and he could see with limited clarity the neon lighting of Pete's Bowl-O-Rama. Some of the letters flickered pitifully, and the sign tilted from disrepair so much so that it threatened to fall over into the street. The building was filthy and broken, as though it hadn't been used in a very, very long time. The gravel parking lot crunched eerily under Richard's feet as he moved closer to inspect the building, and it made him think of a floor scattered with a great carpet of bones. It made him imagine he was crunching the brittle bones of many people long dead, even though that was a crazy thought. _Crazy thoughts from a crazy person..._

The lights were on in the bowl-O-rama, sending pale yellow beams through the open, rickety old door that had once been a grand entrance to a nice bowling alley. Richard walked slowly, quietly, afraid that there might be something vicious lurking inside the place. Did monsters need to turn on the lights, though? That seemed silly, and he had never read about the things that go bump in the night stopping to flip on a light switch. And, if the esteemed Mr. King didn't say his monsters needed the lights, who was Richard to argue? At the same time that he hoped no monster was inside, he equally tried to control his hope that it might be another human being. He didn't want to be crushed if he stepped inside and found that the place was just deserted, and the lights were on in spite of it all.

The door was only open a sliver, enough for a small shaft of light and not much more to escape. Richard reached out, almost hesitantly, and laid his fingers on the doorknob, nervously remembering the white hot glow of all the metal in the hotel. How unfortunate it would be to grab something hot by mistake and leave himself crippled in such a frightening place as this was. The metal was cool though, and the door swung all the way open without resistance. The hinges, though, rusted and aged, loudly screeched their unhappiness at having to move. At first, for a short moment, the shrieking hinges made Richard jump and stare over his shoulder... the sound was very similar to the acid monster he had killed not long ago. He definitely didn't want one of those things to get behind him.

When he had calmed his nerves, he wandered inside the bowling alley, listening to the floorboards creak beneath his feet. Inside the place, all the lights were on and working, and he could even see that some pins were set down the alleys. The smell, however, was anything but inviting. Rotting food and drinks lay about everywhere, and it hit his stomach like an odorous fist, making him want to vomit again even though he had nothing left to give. After a moment, the nausea passed, and Richard was grateful for that. Stepping further inside, he saw that bowling balls were scattered about the floor, and some scorecards were left half-finished. Stooping to pick one up, he noted that one Mr. "S. Vachss" had nearly bowled a perfect game when the card was abandoned. What a pity. There were no bodies scattering this place, though, thankfully, and he assumed that whatever happened here had only scared all the people away, rather than killing them all... with a sudden bit of trepidation in his pace, he only hoped that whatever had done the scaring wasn't around anymore.

Almost as if waiting for him to think about something frightening, several dishes suddenly clattered to the floor and smashed to pieces in the room behind the counter that held the cash register, and Richard nearly leapt right out of his shoes at the sudden noise. Almost instantly, both of his hands were wrapped around the plank he had salvaged from the hotel, and he whirled on his heels to face the disturbance. There was nothing immediately visible, only the counter, the cash register, and the door leading back into the kitchen. A window in the door let him know that the lights were on in there as well, and he thought he saw blurred movement through the glass for a short moment.

"I-is someone there?" He tried to call out, but it came out barely above a scared whisper. He didn't know why he expected someone to be in the kitchen anyway. With his luck, he'd walk in and get splashed with a gallon of acid. Of course, that might be a better way to go, compared to the prospect of wandering around this place. Either way, he decided he'd have to investigate. Holding the plank over his shoulder like a baseball bat, he slipped around behind the counter, walking heel-to-toe in slow fashion to keep his footsteps quiet. It felt like it took him half an hour to get to the door, going at such an excruciatingly slow, careful pace, but finally he got there, and peeked in through the window.

There wasn't a whole lot to see. Some dishes were scattered about, and the appliances inside were in various states of disrepair, and the freezer door was swung open. Richard guessed that, if there was someone inside, they must have been back there. Nervously, Richard nudged the door open with the plank, and he was glad that the hinges didn't screech as it opened. Inside, the smell of rotting food was worse, and he supposed that everything not frozen must have spoiled. He could hear, faintly, rummaging in the freezer, and saw that there were glass fragments scattered around on the floor. He took a couple of steps into the room, glass crunching under his feet, and he peered into the walk-in freezer, which had no lights inside. It didn't sound like a monster was in there looking for food, and his hopes soared. He took a step towards the freezer door, but he was suddenly forced back as the mysterious entity inside came rushing out, directly at him.

It was, he saw, a young woman. She was stained with blood and dirt and wore old clothes; a torn Pink Floyd T-shirt and ragged denim jeans that looked as though they might disintegrate at any moment. Long, unnaturally red hair fell around her shoulders in filthy tangles, and her face was covered in dirt and dust and blood. At the roots of her hair, the color changed to a dark blonde, and it seemed that dye was the culprit behind that dark red color. Richard hardly had time to consider any of this, because in the flickering kitchen lights, the most important thing he saw about the woman was the wicked gleam of a rusted, serrated knife, long and thick like a butcher might use, and it was arcing down straight at him. The woman was shrieking, running at him, and stabbing, and instinctively he raised his only defense, the plank, horizontally to try and intercept the knife. Slicing wildly like she was, the woman stood a good chance of killing him, and he felt his knees quake a bit until adrenaline exploded like tiny firecrackers in his stomach.

"Aiiiiee!" The woman was wailing and tumbled backwards, falling gracelessly onto the glass-scattered floor. Richard opened his eyes, which he had squeezed shut in his unbridled terror, and saw that the knife had thankfully fallen to the floor. Dumbfounded, Richard looked up and saw that the plank had cracked somewhat, and looked down again to see that the woman was nursing her wrist and whimpering, rocking, and crying like a child. He figured she must have hurt herself on the plank, and then fallen over from the pain.

"I... Uh... I'm sorry..." Richard said, awkwardly, and walked closer. She scrambled backwards, cutting her hands on the glass as she did, desperate to get away. The knife lay abandoned on the floor, and Richard stooped to pick it up, so she wouldn't get a hold of it again and turn it on him.

"NO! NO!" She shrieked, terrified as he picked up the knife. "Please! No! DON'T!"

"Huh?" Richard looked at the knife, which was resting quite innocently in his palm, and then back at the girl, "Oh, I'm not going to hurt you. I didn't mean to startle you... It's just... Well I'm kind of on edge right now."

But the young woman wouldn't hear it. She was screaming and crying and wailing like a child at the sight of the man taking her precious knife. Her one friend. Her only defense in this crazy place. Where as Richard thought she was scared he would kill her, she was afraid he'd take away her knife.

"Shhh... Shhh," Richard intoned, walking closer. She didn't scramble back this time, only clenched her wrist and screamed at him over and over again, "please calm down. I don't want to hurt you. Please... come on..."

"No! No! _No_!" She just kept wailing, screaming, huddled over her hurt wrist and crying. Finally, she yelled as shrill and loudly as she could "Give it _BACK_!"

Realization struck Richard like a ton of bricks. The woman thought she was having her weapon taken away. And... in a place like this... he could hardly blame her for being upset over the loss. It was fucking dangerous in Silent Hill, and he figured he'd feel about the same way if he was suddenly disarmed. He sighed, crouched down, and set the knife on the floor. Almost immediately, the wailing stopped. The handle of thing thing was cracked and wobbly, and rust was eating the blade away. He figured she could probably find a better one if she just looked around, but he decided he wouldn't say anything.

"Here, now will you talk to me?" He asked after he set the weapon on the floor. She nodded her head, and he continued, "And, promise you won't try to stab me with this again?" Another nod. He was satisfied, and stood up, kicking the knife gently so that it glided through the field of broken glass, across the linoleum, and came to rest gently against her leg. Now that things had calmed down, and the adrenaline rush was beginning to dissipate, Richard considered the woman's appearance once more. She was frail and thin, practically anorexic, but he guessed that wasn't entirely her fault. She was filthy and ragged, but Richard thought she might have been very pretty once. From the looks of her, he guessed she had been here for a long time. Perhaps she was one of the few survivors of whatever calamity had befallen this little slice of hell called Silent Hill. Her sniffling died away as she had the knife back in her possession, but she still clenched her wrist. Richard figured she must have whacked it pretty hard, and he hoped it wasn't broken.

"Are... are you all right?" He asked nervously, inching closer to try and see the wound.

"I'll be fine." She said in a level tone, the first real conversation she'd had in a long time. The pain was searing through her arm like a lance of fire, but she assumed it'd be okay. She hoped so, anyway.

"What's your name?" Richard asked her, awkwardly. He wasn't really sure how to talk to a girl in a place like this. He felt like he was trying a clumsy attempt at hitting on her by asking her name while they were in the middle of this horrible town.

"Melanie. What's yours?"

"Richard."

"What're you doing here, Richard? Don't you know this hell is meant for me?" Melanie informed him, and there was a bitter tone in her voice. Her lips curled angrily at the thought, and Richard could see she was staring balefully at the glass covered floor.

"What do you mean? What happened here?"

"I don't know what happened. It's always been like this." She stared up at him suddenly, and none of the hatred had left her gaze. He saw that her hazel eyes were dim now, but he suspected that they had once been bright and full of life. "I've been here for a long time. I've lost track of the days. Months, I think, but I'm not sure. This place is crawling with demons. Monsters. Horrible things. Red. Bloody. Horrible things."

"You've been here for months? All by yourself?"

"Yes. It hasn't been easy, but now I get by as best I can. I came here with my friend Nikole. We were supposed to have a great time... Visit the amusement park... Meet some guys. We got here and we saw what this place is. She killed herself... But I couldn't bring myself to follow her. Suicide's never been my idea of fun, but neither is this place. I was just looking for some food and you scared me... I thought you were one of those things."

Richard nodded, sympathetically.

"Some other people came through here. I don't know what happened to them, though. I guess they died. Or found a way out. I doubt that, though. I doubt there's any way out of this place. I'll never get out. I'll die here, you know? You will too. You messed up coming here, Richard."

"Yeah."

Melanie stood, wobbly, still gripping her wrist. Her rusted knife was placed carefully in her pocket, and she brushed some of the glass off of herself.

"I'm going. If you want, you can come, I guess. But something tells me you won't stay long. You look a lot like the last guy who came through. He was a loony. Couldn't stay put. Didn't think it was smart. Well fuck him, it's smarter than wandering around this godforsaken place."

"You think I'm loony?" Richard echoed, mystified by the word.

"No. I just don't think you'll stay put," She said, pushing past him and walking towards the door, "Why? Do _you _think you're loony?"

Richard stared at her back for a long time, thinking, and then finally murmured, "Yeah. I kinda do."


	8. Chapter Seven: History

**Silent Hill: Misty Dreams**

A work of fiction by Lucas S. Speed

--------Chapter Seven: History

They had stepped back into the frigid mist of Silent Hill, and Richard shivered involuntarily, the cold striking him like a knife. He noticed that Melanie didn't even flinch at the cold, despite her ragged, thinning attire. In the back of his mind, Richard wondered what sort of person this young woman had been before she had come to Silent Hill.

_We were supposed to have a great time..._

He guessed she must have been just any other regular person, just like he was. Now, though... she was ragged, and wild, and dangerous. He felt uncomfortable around her, but without any other idea where he should head, he followed after her anyway, somewhat interested to see where she was staying in this hellhole. Somehow, he doubted it would be very cozy, but he at least expected it to be free of monstrous infestation.

"Don't try it." Melanie suddenly whispered, stopping cold in the middle of the street, her uninjured hand tightening about the handle of her rusted knife, to the point that her knuckles were bone white. Richard ground to a halt behind her, confused. The woman glanced over her shoulder at him, and he felt afraid from the malicious look in those hazel eyes.

"Try what?" He asked innocently, confused.

She whirled around, all the way, still holding that knife with a death grip, though she didn't swing it at him. Hatred seemed to radiate from her very pores. Everything about her posture and her gaze was frightening, imposing, and Richard found himself involuntarily stepping backwards. More than anything else, though, Richard found himself confused. Melanie suddenly pointed the knife accusingly at him, and he inched back another step.

"Y'know, I almost thought I could trust you; but I realized that you're just being slick. Well, I know _all _about how you guys operate. The last guy tried it, too, y'know. I'll cut you if you touch me, I swear! They smell the blood! You won't stand a chance with a slice on you, you hear me!"

"What're you talking about Melanie? I'm not trying anything..." Richard stammered, bewildered. As Melanie's voice was elevating, she was jabbing that knife closer and closer at him.

"Good. Just... keep it that way, you hear me? I'll cut you... I swear to God I'll cut you wide open if you touch me!" Her voice cracked, and some of the angry facade wore away. She almost seemed to be crying, and Richard might have tried to console her were it not for that wicked looking knife.

"Melanie... what did you mean, 'They smell the blood'? Who're they?" Richard asked, inching forward.

"Don't... don't fucking touch me..." She said weakly, turning back around. She put the knife in her pocket, and Richard could hear that she was sobbing, gently. Eventually, she began to trudge forward again, her sneakers grinding against the crushed gravel road.

"Melanie, I don't want to touch you." Richard said softly, beginning to follow her pace again, but this time keeping a safer distance. Melanie rubbed her eyes against her dirty forearm and sniffed loudly. Slowly, the outburst was beginning to make sense, and Richard wondered if the last man to pass through Silent Hill had tried to rape the poor girl.

"R...really?" Melanie asked through her crazed sniffling, and she glanced over her shoulder slightly, regarding him with one eye through a tangled forest of crimson and blonde hair.

"Really."

"I don't believe you." She said that, not accusingly, but simply as a fact.

Richard sighed and put his hands in his pockets, deciding not to fight it. He supposed whatever had happened to her must have been traumatizing... But then, what _wasn't_ traumatizing in this town? He was still curious though, and he asked again: "Melanie, who can smell blood? Who were you talking about?"

Melanie stayed quiet for a long time, as though she were considering revealing the secret to him. Finally, though, she said in a voice barely above a hoarse whisper, "The Demons."

"Oh..."

She stared at Richard for a long, final moment, before her shoulders slumped weakly and she sighed, "Come on."

After a long, awkward moment, they began shuffling on again, and Richard felt suddenly drained from the confrontation. Somewhere in the distance, he heard a shrill shriek echo throughout the fog, but it didn't seem too close, and it didn't seem to bother Melanie any.

And then, after they had crossed the road, they were at the Silent Hill Historical Society. Richard knew that was what it was because he remembered the town layout from his X covered map. He didn't remember off hand if the Historical Society was marked or not, but he assumed it must have some semblance of safety if Melanie used it as a permanent residence in this hellish town. Melanie took a large step and then a glance around, to assure the area was safe, and then opened the door just wide enough to admit a human form, and slipped inside, beckoning for Richard to follow.

"Be careful," She warned from the doorway, "There's a wire in front of the door. Be sure you don't trip on it!"

Richard stopped short, wobbling and barely preserving his balance as he saw that there was indeed a wire stretched out in front of him, at just the right height to catch his ankles and topple him onto the ground. And... God knows what sort of thing was rigged up to that wire. In a place like this, he doubted anything Melanie could cook up would be sufficient defense. Warily, he picked his feet up and stepped over the thing, glancing nervously up at Melanie as he did.

"What's it hooked up to?"

"Uh..." Melanie started, nervously, "Just some cans. It makes a noise if something trips the uh.. wire, y'know? It's like an early warning system, I guess."

"Oh." Richard supposed that made sense. He didn't know why he thought the half-crazed girl might have come up with some elaborate trap mechanism. He supposed he was just being overly paranoid. And, he decided that there wasn't anything wrong with that around here. He slipped through the door and Melanie pulled it shut, locked the deadbolt, and pushed a chair against the wooden portal. Seemed safe enough, Richard decided, and he took a quick look around.

The place was, to put it simply, a ransacked mess. Glass and paper and debris were scattered all around the place, and supposedly historical paintings and icons were spread about on the floor like worthless trash. Richard noticed one painting, at his feet, of a horrible red monster, wreathed in mist and covered in blood, with corpse-like figures hanging in the background. Richard shuddered, feeling a sense of downright unpleasantness from the picture, and he moved away from it, further into the Historical Society. The entire place was dirty, and littered with cans and wrappers and all sorts of food containers. The scent of decaying food sent his stomach reeling like a punch into his abdomen, and he staggered, trying to contain the waves of nausea that shocked through his body.

After a few moments, he finally recovered a bit of composure, swallowed down a bit of bile, and glanced over at Melanie, who was sitting on the floor, with her back pressed against the brick wall.

"You're staying here?"

"Yeah. It's the best shelter I could manage, I guess. Besides, it's on the outskirts of town, so, y'know, there aren't too many of those things around."

"Hm, I guess that makes sense." Richard said quietly, taking a seat on the floor across from the girl. He felt sorry for her, seeing her shaken up and huddling in a destroyed old building, in the middle of hell. "So, you say you've been here for months?"

"Yeah, that's my guess. I could be wrong, though."

"But, it's been a long time?" Richard leaned forward slightly, interested.

"Yeah."

"Wow. How in the world is it that no one has heard about this stuff? How can this not be global news?"

"Because, not too many people seem to pass through here. I've only seen.. maybe three people? And you, of course... And I don't think anyone is getting out to tell people, really. I don't think there's any way out."

"But.. this is a tourist destination. How is it there's no traffic here? It has an amusement park for Christ's sake."

Melanie shuffled uneasily, rubbing her back uncomfortably against the brick wall she leaned on. The man had a good point, and she lacked a definite answer. In fact, she lacked a lot of answers, and she wished he would quit questioning her like she was some sort of criminal. Well, he had no right to go acting like that. Besides, her hand throbbed painfully and she was hungry, and she didn't really give a damn about this ignorant man in front of her, with his ignorant questions and his ignorant voice. If he wanted to understand so badly, he could just go outside and wander around. Maybe someone would let him know his answers when he was dead. She wanted to scream at him to shut up, to leave her alone, to sit in uncomfortable silence as all her other guests had done... but she finally elected to just sit quietly and stare at him with unyielding hazel eyes. She was suddenly very angry she invited him in.

"Melanie..?"

"Yes?" She looked up, startled from her thoughts.

"H-have.. you run into a monster with... Uhm. Well, it had three heads. It... it looked like three different people, sewn together, I guess. I don't really know how to describe it.. I... It's really loud, for one thing, and it was shrieking and..." His voice trailed off as he watched her, realizing that a quiver of fear had quaked through her body. She stared in awe at Richard, hardly believing what he was describing.

"Get out." She was on her feet, instantly, and her voice was forceful. She pointed an imperious finger to the way they had come in, and she screamed at the top of her shrill voice, "GET OUT!"

Richard stumbled to his feet as she shrieked at him, and she shoved him roughly towards the door. "Wait, Melanie.. I don't understand! I'm sorry if it was something I said.. I..."

But the crazed woman would hear none of it. Already, she had the rusted knife in her hands, and she was jabbing it at him dangerously. He backed up, and she screamed again, "GETOUT!GETOUTGETOUTGETOUTGETOUTGETOUT!"

Obediently, Richard turned and moved to the door, threw it open, and ran outside. He went sprawling into the grass as the wire cut into his ankles, and the clanging of pots and cans could be heard all about the Historical Society. He scrambled to his feet and turned around, looking to see Melanie in the doorway, looking so very wild and frightened in her Pink Floyd T-shirt and her ripped jeans, with that knife gleaming in her hands.

"Melanie, what is this about? I'm sorry!" Richard was desperate. He didn't want to lose his only human contact in this miserable place, and he definitely didn't want such a crazy woman angry at him. He never got his answer, but he did have to duck as the knife came spinning through the mist and over his head, clattering against the gravel somewhere behind him. That was enough for him, and he turned, sprinting the next couple dozen meters away from that place, and that woman, and that knife. Judging from his memory of the map, the next place he'd visit would be Rosewater Park.

Melanie was sobbing by the time she had recovered her knife and reset her tripwire. Something about Richard's description had shaken her deep, to her core, and she knew that she couldn't let him stay even a moment longer if that _thing _was after him. She pressed her body up against the closed door and cried for a long time, even after Richard was gone from her memory. The thing he described was so vivid, so horrible to her, and she had never seen it. For a long time, she could hardly even understand how she recognized it's description, and then it finally came to her and it was so obvious.

That creature was the monstrosity that had driven Nikole to kill herself in this horrible place. Melanie could remember her friend describing it as she had leapt into the freezing lake, and she couldn't help but cry that much harder.


End file.
